A Long Dead Name
by chi-of-ink
Summary: "Never," Pitch growls, "Never call me that again. Do you understand?" -oneshot, Blackice-


There's nobody else that understands the full impact of what it means to be lonely. That utterly unimportant, untouched feeling that can seep down through the skin and draw tight around a soul. It's why Jack started to think that he understood Pitch, really understood him, in a way that was closer and darker and more intimate than the other Guardians could ever manage.

Loneliness had the power to make him lash out or turn away or break down and beg. Loneliness could drive a kid crazy. It's why he let Pitch hiss dark, scathing remarks as they stared each other down over the dark pit of his underground lair. It's why he kept talking as the broken King growled "leave me be, haven't you gloated enough?' It's why years later, he still lets himself be lured into the inky cavern where Pitch hides, where the Fearlings slip around his ankles like curious cats and Pitch's fingers curl around his waist longingly as he mutters, _'we could still be great, you and I, if you would just be mine._

So Jack persists, hoping to wear him down. And sometimes he can see the change - when the man's sharp leer is more of a smile, when his laugh lacks it's usual sarcasm and bite. Sometimes when he gathers Jack close, it's not angry and impatient, it's just hopeful and lonely, and all of that is good for him. He can work with that. He thinks he _knows_ Pitch, but then, sometimes he finds that he doesn't really know him at all.

It's one of those heavier nights, tinged with desperateness and the touch-starved will for contact. Pitch's fingers seem to know every little spot that makes him shiver again. He doesn't leave his lair anymore, not since he's been defeated. What's the point? Nobody but Jack would see him. And so he can feel the way that Pitch is drunk on his company, ecstatic in every tiny reaction. His own pale hands stand out like stars against the coal-dark wash of Pitch's cloak, and it's so intoxicating the way he whispers low and burning, "Devious creature, but you can be sweet when you so desire, hm? You can be good for _me_..."

Jack snickers, "Yeah?" and Pitch breathes back, "Yes, good boy..," and Jack just laughs "Oh, Daddy, please," and suddenly everything, every little line of Pitch's body and every tiny shadow in the room just _stops._

Jack straightens, alarmed and blinking, and he's about to ask what's wrong when Pitch speaks again in a voice completely different from anything Jack's ever heard. "_What did you just call me?_"

Jack feels his face flush quickly with color. "Uh."

"_Where_ did you hear that?" Pitch demands dangerously.

He's pushed Pitch's boundaries before, stepped over a lot of lines, dared him with a lot of remarks, but this is completely unexpected. Pitch feels - _different_, unbearably sad, angry, horrified,...and just..._wrong._ He's completely still, but Jack feels the sense of something building, like a tsunami long kept at bay and now coiling high, ready to crash down and destroy everything in it's path. For the first time since his defeat, Jack looks at Pitch and actually feels fear.

"I, uh." He inches back a little, grimacing at Pitch's expression. "Heard that from, you know-" he gestures around himself vaguely. "People. It's just a pet name - I mean, it's just an expression..." It's quiet for a long moment. Pitch's fingers are there in his lap, curling and uncurling like there's something he should be holding, and Jack's starting to think maybe he should leave, except...

"Never," Pitch growls, "Never call me that again. _Never._ Do you understand?"

"Easy, calm down. I get it." Jack says quickly, and on an impulsive, he slides a hand back around Pitch's shoulder. It's not sexual anymore, only tentative and soothing. "Okay? I get it."

Pitch relaxes the slightest bit, tolerating Jack's hesitant little pets. The air is still tense, but the shadows and fearlings have started to slink about again, and so Jack goes from feeling fear to feeling a little silly, as if he's trying to cuddle a statue or something.

"I understand." he soothes quietly every now and then, as the tenseness slowly fades from Pitch. But it's not completely true anymore. He doesn't understand. This is something from inside of Pitch, something private and dark and untamed, and there's no way he'll really see it in it's entirety unless Pitch make the choice to share.

Somewhere above them, the moon has already started making it's nightly trek around the Earth. He's not quite sure when it happened, but at some point then, Pitch curled a hand back around his waist and held him back.


End file.
